“You just stop that kind of talk right now. I’m gonna get us out of here. Believe it.”
“Yeah,” Leo replied.
Perry heard the doubt and resignation in the teen’s voice, and it broke his heart. His thoughts turned to Lawanda and the kids they’d never had. And then a series of sharp, high-pitched screams echoed down the corridor.
“Shit . . .”
Leo turned ashen. “That’s Jamal and Dookie!”
“Come on!”
Perry charged down the hall, his footsteps thundering. Leo ran along behind him. They barged into the foyer, but it was empty. Leo began opening doors, frantically looking in the vacant rooms.
“Dookie,” Perry hollered. “Jamal! Where are you?”
More screams drifted down from upstairs.
“Oh Jesus . . . what the hell are they doing up there?”
He leaped up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Leo ran along right behind him. The stairs creaked and cracked beneath their feet and the worm-eaten banister trembled at their passage, but neither Perry nor Leo slowed. As they reached the second floor, they heard Dookie shriek again. Jamal was strangely silent. Another long hallway stretched out before them. Both sides were lined with doors—some open and others closed. The floor was covered with a frayed, mildew-stained, burgundy carpet. Dookie’s flashlight beam winked at them from the end of the hall. They ran toward it and found him standing outside an open door. Dookie was pulling his own hair with one hand. His other hand waved the flashlight around in wide, excited arcs. His eyes bulged and his mouth was open in shock. He gasped for breath, preparing to scream again when Perry and Leo reached him. Perry grabbed his flailing arm and Dookie, shrieked, clubbing him repeatedly on the head and shoulders with the flashlight.
“Ow! Stop it. Dookie, it’s us. It’s Mr. Watkins and Leo! What’s wrong? Where’s Jamal?”
Dookie wrapped his arms around the older man and squeezed tight, burying his face in Perry’s chest. When he tried to speak, all that came out was a muffled sob. He shuddered against Perry.
“Dookie,” Perry tried again, “where’s Jamal?”
Still not looking up, Dookie pointed through the open door with the flashlight. Perry and Leo glanced at each other. Then Leo peeked through the open door. He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. He suddenly seemed frozen in place. Perry could tell by his stance that something was terribly wrong. Gently disentangling himself from Dookie, he crept up behind Leo and looked inside the room.
At first, Perry didn’t understand what he was seeing. It came to him in bits and pieces. Jamal was levitating several feet off the floor with his back against the wall. There was a large sheet of plywood holding him in place. A length of thick rope had been attached to the plywood, suspending it from the ceiling. Perry followed the rope to the point where it disappeared into the darkness above. Then he glanced back down at Jamal. The teen hung there, pinned against the wall, silent and still. There was blood on the edges of the plywood. Blood on the wall behind Jamal. Blood pooling on the floor at his feet.
“Oh,” Perry whispered. “Oh . . . Jesus.”
He crept closer, and with slowly dawning horror, Perry realized what had happened. Someone had driven an assortment of kitchen knives, broken pipes, jagged shards of hard plastic, and rusty iron spikes into the plywood. Then they had winched it up in the ceiling. Somehow, Jamal had triggered the device when he entered the room. And, Perry assumed, since they’d heard both Jamal and Dookie screaming originally, the trap hadn’t killed Jamal immediately.
“Those motherfuckers,” he muttered. “Those sick motherfuckers.”
Not holding much hope, he stumbled over to Jamal, reached up, and checked the unmoving teen’s pulse. It was as still as the house.
“Is he?” Leo asked.
Perry nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“I tried to stop him,” Dookie sobbed. “I told him to stay downstairs, but he figured there might be a light switch up here. Then he decided that maybe we could try one of the windows.”
“They’re bricked up,” Perry choked. “Why would he—”
“But they’re not, Mr. Watkins.” Dookie pointed with the flashlight. “Look.”
Perry swiveled his head, following the beam of light across the room. There were two windows in the wall. Both were barricaded with thick sheets of moldering plywood, but unlike the downstairs windows, they hadn’t been bricked over. He glanced down at the floor. The half-rotten floorboards were covered with a thick layer of dust and dead insects. The only signs of disturbance were their own footprints and Jamal’s blood, spreading out in a pool. Obviously, the room hadn’t been entered in a long time. With the pervasive dampness in the air, it was possible that the plywood had weakened somewhat, and if so, whoever had boarded up the windows in the first place hadn’t checked them lately.
Fingers crossed, Perry strode across the floor and tapped on the plywood sheet covering one window. It was solid. He checked the second window. The plywood covering this one was streaked with mildew and mold, and moist to the touch. Holding his breath, he shoved the sharp edge of the crowbar against it. The blade sank into the wood easily enough.
Perry started to cry. He turned to Leo and Dookie, tears of relief streaming down his dirty cheeks.
“It’s rotten. Not all the way, but enough that I think I can get it off.”
They stared at him blankly, as if not understanding what he was saying.
“We can get out,” Perry whispered. “Through the window. Come here, boys. Quickly now.”
Dookie’s stunned expression crumbled, replaced by one of numb disbelief. Leo seemed unsure, as well. But they did as he asked and crossed toward him. They stood there, arms at their sides, looking at everything but Jamal.
Perry jammed the crowbar between the barrier and the wall, and wiggled it back and forth. A small chunk of wood broke off, splintering. He let it fall to the floor and pried off a bigger piece about the size of his fist. Grinning, he attacked it with abandon, no longer caring if he made any sound. They’d be free in minutes.
He’d cleared about half the plywood away, exposing a little less than half of the window before hitting solid wood. After that, his progress became harder. Because of how it had been constructed, Perry found it difficult to get any leverage. He began to grow winded.
“Damn it.”
“What’s wrong?” Leo asked. “Why’d you stop?”
“The rest of it is solid,” Perry gasped. “I can’t get it loose.”
He wiped sweat from his brow and studied them both for a moment. Then he turned around and tried unlocking the window hasp. It was rusted into place and wouldn’t move. Instead, Perry smashed the glass out of the portion of the window that they could see. Immediately, a cool breeze washed over them. To Perry, it was one of the most pleasurable sensations he’d ever experienced. He turned back around again. Leo and Dookie’s expressions were terrified.
“Somebody’s gonna hear that glass breaking,” Leo scolded. “You’ll lead them right to us.”
“I know,” Perry said. “That’s why we’ve got to do this quickly. Dookie, you’re the only skinny enough to fit through that window. Go for help.”
“You’re fucking tripping, Mr. Watkins.”
“Don’t you get smart with me, boy.”
“Who you calling boy?”
“We don’t have time to argue, Dookie. Get out that fucking window and go for help. The police must have arrived by now.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Leo said.
Perry sighed, exasperated. “If they haven’t, then tell my wife what’s happened. Tell her to call 911 again and stay on the line with them until somebody comes. She’s got to make them send somebody. And then, while she’s doing that, you start banging on doors and waking people up.”